1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method for treating hormone-independent cancers via the use of purinergic receptor agonists, diagnostic uses of these compounds to determine effective treatment for specific tumors, a process for screening for new potent analogs of these compounds, and the use of these compounds in facilitating the extraction of intracellular components from cells.
2. Description of Related Art
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and the second most common cause of cancer death in men in the United States (J. F. Fraumeni, Jr. et al. in Principles and Practice of Oncology, 3rd edition, 1989, V. T. DeVita, Jr., S. Hellman, and S. A. Rosenberg, eds., J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia). Approximately 50% of patients are presented with metastatic disease. The only existing treatment for metastatic disease is hormonal therapy, which is not curative. Thus, metastatic disease is uniformly fatal.
Hormonal therapy, which consists of different approaches to blocking the action of androgen on the prostate tumor, is effective in controlling only the growth of tumor cells that depend on androgen for growth (hormone-dependent tumor). Unfortunately, hormone-dependent tumor inevitably progresses to more advanced hormone-independent tumor, which cannot be controlled by current treatment modalities: surgery and radiation therapy are not curative for advanced metastatic disease, and advanced prostatic cancer is not responsive to conventional chemotherapy. New approaches are needed for the treatment of this neoplasm, and any treatment advance would have a significant public health impact.